


Oh but the tigers come at night

by mossysuge



Category: Original Works
Genre: Abuse, Action, Alcohol, Arson, Child Abuse, Dictatorship, Dystopian, Fiction, Gen, Mental Illness, Original Works - Freeform, Post World, Profanity, Riots, Smoking, Trauma, V for Vendetta - Freeform, Violence, drug usage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24922408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mossysuge/pseuds/mossysuge
Summary: The country, once Eton had been renamed Torrenbar for better or for worse. For there are things worse than death- things that feed on fear and disease.For Mrs. Wuulavara, my AP Lit teacher. Happy retirement.
Kudos: 1





	Oh but the tigers come at night

The Terrence windows had not been relinquished for some length of time and it’s effects- albeit ghost like- were felt prominently by the Oily dark haired woman standing in the middle of the room. With a vague expression of uncomfort she worried at a seam in her lip, tasting blood and sweat, skin itching for some phantom release. 

The clock strung one in the afternoon, bellowing it’s arrival. Mildly shocked, she rose out of her daze and steadied herself before seizing the tattered pig hide bag on the floor. 

The midday sun beat it’s terrible symphony on the back of her neck slapping upon it like some tribal drum. She is hyper aware of her reflections in the shop windows, skittering and pulsating from the different thickness of glasses by until blocks later it stops and turns to face her. She meets her own gaze. The girl looking back at her cannot be described as beautiful, and self evident fact. A bulbous sagging nose wed to tiny slanted lips hanging low to her chin and eyes- eyes that seemed dull, dumb, and devastatingly too close together created some pitifully ugly mask.

She whipped back to her marching. Time was fleeting and the sun was still glaring down on harsh as ever. 

Left and rights blurred till a sharp corner signaled the diggings she had been sniffing out, pursuing. (She thinks of mole rats.) The phone in her thigh pocket tings signaling her arrival, (here it is x marks the spot.)

“Mind the paint” the man mumbles. The door is whipped open brazenly and the smell of weed is like a slap in the face only to embed  
itself in the fabric of her jumper. Over on the rickety corner table there is a sleeve of black and milds and behind those, dusty jars of fireball. A proud shrine of vodka overlooks the low slung ceiling like something to be worshiped

He must be some higher up fellows bum boy, she thinks uncharitably- to be having a structure like this and not some corrugated shelter with 6 other peasants constantly trying to steal your rations.

“Here.”

He chucks her fours packs of Marlboros andshe fumbles forward to catch them. Fingers seizing up, it’s a failure and the cases for a split second shine in the sunlight breaking through the window before smacking on the ground mussing up the paintjob.

He scoffs breaking the pregnant silence, and leaves her standing rather stupidly in the middle of the room.

—————————————————————-

By evening, she’s feeling ceremonious. Monk-like and doped up as the fag between her fingers spits little whiffs of smoke, silently smoldering.

When the war had fizzled out and the last dregs of rebellion had been washed away. A barren sea of survivors had been left to their defenses of the new government. The country, once Eton had been renamed Torrenbar and once life resumed it had been of good order. Tall cold men in white metal suits marching up and down the roads only to leave when day break came and the cameras could resume watch of the streets. Not all class was lost in the primordial world- there was beautiful symmetry in the esse of dictatorship. This- was to be the peace in their time.

She’s stationed to the fourth sector out of seven hundred and nine the country.

And now, she is pulled to reality by the insulting and pungent waft of soot breaking across her face. Dan has decided it be appropriate to stir her in such manner. 

The man in front of her couldn’t be a work of art either. Time has not improved Dan; he still has the same sharp-boned, rangy quality as before, only transposed somehow onto the features of a grown man ten years on — still beardless but with a cut Adam's apple in his throat that hadn't been there before. Lips stretched deceivingly catlike.

When they had been children, before the death of the old world they had been schoolmates. Never friends. Dan was a little politician with disciples to accompany him- a presidential cabinet. She been ashamedly more an outcast. She said esoteric, they said FREAK! Prowling behind hall corners, stalking him- to hear him talk, to mime his speech. Like he was teaching her. Like charisma was tangible and viscous and she could drink his. She’d looked up to him then and now...

Now they sat together. Dumbed and doped up he considered her, eye to eye with a slightly crazed look. 

“Say we blow up the civic square.”

“What?”

Even in this state she still has the mind to to unravel the horror of his words, it’s wasn’t so much that she was timid to his idea, but the totalitarian government had effectively beat them to submission- propaganda like some ancient practiced custom to her mind.

“That’s all well and done” she says slowly.

“But what’ll you do once they find you and string you up like Christ on the cross?”

Self confidently aware, “Me? Being god? I’m used to it aren’t I?” And once again she gets peek of his old childish schoolboy poke out.

She scowls.

The way her blood once rallied at the sight of him, now quells in abated respect, with dishonorable inconsistency.

Why do you fight?" she asked. "Boredom," he whispered emotionlessly, and the bubble of vapor he exhales with the word snags onto the last red-orange ray of sunset. He looked like a wounded dragon: fierce and blind, breathing fire at nothing.

“Hell or high water.” And he says it like a mantra.

Outside, the now starless night seemed to only intensify the whirring of drones overhead and hollering and whooping of officer men could be heard as they gained on another victim. Maybe the culprit was stealing bread. Or simply out after curfew. Maybe- they were just being hunted for sport. She does not care for it, (though her something warm akin to acid reflux sinks in her chest .)

How had it come to this? An entirely new age had mobilized in the span of 11 years, dictatorship, tolitarian fiendishness- silent and deadly replacing in the spot of deceased democracy. (Democracy dies in darkness)

She thinks back to her girlhood. Her father had beat her once at the marketplace for snubbing a satchel of fizzing candy. (One two- one two- like some versed karate move.)  
Swollen knuckles, and lump here her brow, there on the swell of her chin. But the bruises were well hidden behind the side part bangs she used to have, and the pain didn’t last. More importantly, the men in blue did not come to take her dad away. Because trouble was never worth its weight- it never lasted long enough to.

But that was then and this was now, and every single time she wakes up the dull truth of it all is to be taken in like sharp red wine and funneled out. It’d never be over. It twists and turns in her stomach and though she’s only 20, she’s never felt so aged and weary and tired like those leathery and rough smokers she used to look down upon when she had been young.

She would’ve been graduating right now, she muses bitterly. Finishing her degree in nursing.

Dan- (what a disgraced politician), could read people and is not oblivious to the shifty atmosphere around her; A tide, a calling whisper around them stirring- her face like the pallid moon- pulling, pulling in the tide. (We must do something about this fucked up situation.)

He grinned  
—————————————————————

Don't you ever just want burn it down? Take to the streets, to hell with the status quo. Just once, that’s all you’ll to get. Dan is giving her that chance now, and she's going to take it.

Dan’s car escorts them to the civic center. They’re standing ready- dead center in a cul de sac. The bright white buildings gang up around them, stone faced carbon copies of each other yet Dan seems to know exactly which building there scouting out because before she can even turn to ask him, he’s skipped off to the left one, 5th from last.

His form is impressive. Wobbling around, arms windmilling like one of those ballon men and for a split second, she morbidly muses on how she’d like to spear him in the back with the dagger they brung. Dip it down and let it bite. Still she follows like a spectre feet dragging, the deadman’s march.

The window explodes in retaliation to Dans kick and he shambles through ducking and emerging like a daddy long leg. She never would have broke in like that- it’s too flourish, pretentious. She follows suit and looks around calculating the spread of the floor, it’s the black wood type (she doesn’t know) but the three tanks of gas should be enough to feed the fire. The liquid splashes her arm. She’s going to have to be mindful of which hand she’s to hold the match in.

Over by the lift, Dan monkies cackling around looking filthy and brutish swinging to and fro the canister like whiplash. Liquid haphazardly streamlining every which way. She’ll be damned if they happen to set themselves alight.

She spoons herself another helping of coke from the baggie in her thigh pocket.

Still on cloud nine, drug wise- they skid out mission impossible-esque just as the flames nip the entrance sizzling and spitting, the men in white haven’t noticed anything amiss yet because they don’t hear any (whooping and hollering). 

It’s all so clear now. She’s standing back watching the fire rage on and on and on. She’s watching it like the first cavemen watching the first fire and all of the sudden it’s too much. It’s a trick; a glam. The Inferno spreads like hell or like leaves aging in a movie.

She grabs Dan’s hand to ground herself and he turns to grin at her- like his over confident self is thinking “Told you it was fun let’s do it again.” Only they really do it; burn it. Burn the tires down the black smooth roads like fiends on the run. Blaze up every Tower of Babel their devilish selves mange to sniff out. She‘s maniacal with every thrust of the canister and every scratch of the match.

Five more buildings are now in ruins thanks to them and it only does well to spread to the nearby ones- (for such a modern civilization, you’d think they’d be fireproof). There’s symphony that she’s suddenly aware of and a childhood chockfull of piano lessons ables her knowledgeable of many pieces and their names. Tvchaiavorski’s 1812 overture ripples like an ally- an accompanying little bird twittering about them and a vision of guy Fawkes mask grins down, promising trouble. 

“V for vendetta” only that movie hadn’t been real; but don’t they say life imitates art? 

“Do you know any classics?” She suddenly asks.  
“What?”  
“Like Chopin, Rachmaninov, Debussy....?”

He just stares blankly.

Of course he doesn’t, she thinks sullenly watching his nose shift and wrinkle, snapping back in a laugh.

Dan, unaware to the sudden shift in her gait, flourishes his hand around like they’re touring Narnia instead of hell.

“Look at this shit! Look at what we did! Fuckkkkkk”

She hums in agreement, forgiving him for the previous remark; her face slacking in ecstasy.

——

So they never get to the main the building- the Peice de resistance in this state.

It’s only a matter of fate and time before they slip up- bring it all crumbling down with a mushroom cloud. They men in white are clawing at their heels - rather wheels- as they flame down the road, probably going a hundred over the limit. She screeches in Dan’s ear, “GO GO GO” he roars back, “SHUT UP!” And beats her off with a free hand. He catches her on the jut of her chin and her head rocks back brain feeling all mushed In her skull. She lays back sits and cries. She’d been crying all night really, first she’d been crying in exhalation, now in anguish as truth weighed down on them. No one knew what the men in white do to criminals. (Had there ever been any survivors? God- no ever came back did they?) She realized.

There’s a worse punishment for them in stock. They are terrorists, upshurs of the common peace and undertakers of a primal past. Was t like they stayed past curfew or back talked a higher up fellow (per the usual crime). And they’ll be killed for it.

Suddenly- 

It would be only be possible in a cartoon, they spot an alleyway and manage to lose them. The car tips with the turn and re aligns itself a little less dignified than they’d liked but they’re okay nonetheless. They sit in shaken silence, air scarce and out of nowhere she pops him, whacking away at his stupid stuck up nose-(how’s that for feeling alive?)

Maybe a minute later or so, (Took her damn long enough). She wallops onto the ground, like a hinge that had given way. He’d let her rock him. He’d deserved it really- he’d roped her into this stunt. What the hell was she his “trap queen”? because of course oh- who could resist Dan the devil himself. 

Her black eyes meet his cerulean ones and it’s understood in somber agreement. No plan- they aren’t getting out if this one.

“We’re not some damned revolutionaries” she thinks. They aren’t Bonnie and Clyde, not Torrenbar’s sweethearts, and certainly not martyrs. There’s no likely escape route and no possible scapegoats to throw the blame on because the perfectly put cameras captured everything, saw all, the cyber eye of sauron. 

It’s getting harder and harder to breathe, guy fawkes- grinning teeth- (better wake up now before you forget how too.)

“  
(Tvchaivarski thumping and thumping and thumping and thumping-)  
(The beauty of it all like fucking Narina-)  
According to webMD, The heart increases its rate, sweating and palpitations may occur....

She slumps. (Hinge swings, popping off.)

The city roars. 

He drags her out the car into an underbush, sneezing flecks of blood that sprays across on her face. The unbroken sleep of the innocent huh?

It’s morning.

Dan looks on in childlike helplessness. Certainly they couldn't squat here forever and there was no telling how flames would rage or the earth would hold its frightening fury. He wanted to wake her and ask (what to do), but Ann lay limp. He squeezed her a little tighter.

The first staccato spears of sunlight sharpens up his face. No one had heard them approach. The inferno was deafening as it seemed the rest of the city- inspired took after them and continued arson. Suddenly, spotlights, their whiteness godlike as angels illuminated them. Dan turned, in fear, in awe, anger, and humiliation- and saw the troops.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by current events in America. Honestly my first time writing besides school.


End file.
